Guide to the August J. Reuss Papers

August J. Reuss was a physician practicing in Cuero, Texas in the late 1870s. Papers consist of a memorial tribute to Reuss by Rudolph Kleberg, U.S. Representative, and entries on the J. M. Reuss family of Cuero, Texas from the U.S. Census of 1860 and 1880.

August J. Reuss was born in Indianola, Texas in 1850. He was the oldest of 5 children of J. M Reuss, also a physician and an immigrant from Bavaria, and Gessima Reuss, from the Grand Duchy of Oldenbourg. His younger brother, J. H. Reuss, was also a physician.

August attended Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia for two years then took a course in medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottsville, Virginia. He graduated in medicine at New Orleans in 1870 before he was twenty years old. Immediately upon his graduation he went abroad and entered the German army as an Assistant Surgeon in the Franco-Prussian war. After the war, he studied two years in the Universities of Wurzburg and Vienna, returning in 1872 to Indianola to begin his practice. He moved his practice to Cuero, Texas in the spring of 1873, where his professional visits extended far into the adjoining settlements. On a trip to treat a patient in the winter of 1875, he was suddenly overtaken by and exposed to a cold and wet norther. He contracted a severe cold which turned into chronic pneumonia and pulmonary consumption.

Ruess died in January 1876 in Friedericksburg, Texas at the age of 26. He was buried in Cuero, Texas.

Sources:

Tribute to the Memory of August J. Reuss, M.D. by Rudolph Kleberg, M.C., March 31, 1900.

U.S. Census 1860. Schedule 1 – Free Inhabitants in Indianola, in the County of Calhoun, Sate of Texas, page 10.

U.S. Census 1880. Schedule 1 – Inhabitants in Cuero in the County of DeWitt, Sate of Texas, page 357.

The Reuss Papers consist of a memorial tribute written by his friend Rudolph Kleberg of the U. S. House of Representatives in 1900 and copies of U.S. Census information on the J. M. Reuss family for 1860 and 1880.

Arrangement of Collection

The papers are arranged in one folder within a box containing several other folders for other collections.

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research use. Materials may be viewed in the reading room of the P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library, located on the 5th floor of the Briscoe Library at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Use Restrictions

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Physical Access

Some materials are very brittle or torn on the edges and may require an electronic copy or photocopy for use.

The Bexar County Medical Society Library donated the memorial tribute in 1970 to the library of the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio. Census papers were added during the writing of the finding aid in 2013.

Memorial tribute received as part of donation of manuscripts and historical books from the Bexar County Medical Society Library in 1970. Census information added in 2013 by archivist during creation of the finding aid.